Abstract
Sports tourism has emerged as a significant dimension of alternative and sustainable tourism, attracting growing academic interest due to its economic, social, and environmental implications. This study investigates the relationship between sports and tourism and examines how sports activities influence tourists’ behavior, reasons for additional pending and perceptions of sustainable regional development. A structured questionnaire was created that was addressed to tourists in Greece, with the aim of identifying their attitudes, their will and general opinions concerning money spent, length of stay, other actions related to tourism and potential correlations between several variables. 1503 replies were received in 2024, which highlighted the great relationship between sports and tourism as well as the multilateral impact of sports on tourism according to the perspective of tourists in Greece. The analysis demonstrates a strong association between engagement in sports activities and key tourism outcomes, including extended length of stay, increased daily expenditure, and enhanced overall travel experience. Demographic differences were also identified, with younger and higher educated visitors expressing stronger beliefs in the developmental benefits of sports, while older and less educated groups showed skepticism. Access to sports activities appears to motivate higher expenditures, influence destination choice. Machine learning algorithms applied to the dataset, demonstrated high accuracy in predicting daily expenditure behavior in sports activities. Overall, the study highlights the multifaceted economic, social, and environmental impact of sports on tourism and underscores the significance of sports towards sustainable tourism strategies.
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